amNY has an article about how Penn Station New York is still a terrible transportation hub for riders/pedestrians to navigate. While there’s no new information in the article, it is good that this topic is still being brought up by the media.

Despite some half a billion dollars in improvements over the years, Penn Station is still one of the most difficult transit hubs to figure out, the perennial ugly sister to a majestic Grand Central Terminal.

With its low ceilings, cramped signs, huge crowds, and maze of hallways, travelers say they often find themselves getting lost in the underground labyrinth.

Whereas in previous years I believe the Route 351 Meadowlands Express Bus Service was half run by NJ Transit and half contracted out, this year it will be completely run by CoachUSA. The 351 bus takes you from the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan to the Meadowlands Sports Complex for major events. It’s $5 each way, exact change required.

And many people love to take this bus to Giants and Jets NFL football games. Sure, some people have defected to the train, but the 351 has its true believers.

In addition, Metro-North will be introducing a new direct service from major New Haven Line stations to the Meadowlands (via Secaucus Junction) for football games starting at 1 p.m. From there, shuttle trains will bring fans directly to the new Meadowlands Station and the game. Metro-North New Haven line direct service begins as the regular season kicks off on Sunday, September 13 with the NY Giants/Washington Redskins game that starts at 1 p.m. [Emphasis added]

Good job, MTA. Way to go.

You see, the 9/13/2009 game actually starts at 4:15 PM, thus making it ineligible for direct New Haven line service. The correct start date of direct New Haven line service is Sunday, September 20, 2009, when the New York Jets host the New England Patriots with a 1:00 PM kickoff.

In case the MTA goes and corrects the press release, below is a screen shot with the offending material highlighted.

UPDATE: DepartureVision is actually online and working for possibly all stations in the system. Go here, click on a station, and then add “-mobile” after the “tid” part of the URL.Source: Railroad.net NJ Transit Rail forum

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New Jersey Transit has announced the trial implementation of real-time train arrival / departure boards available to mobile-internet users for the Secaucus Junction train station. It is being called DepartureVision™.

Using a mobile phone or device with internet capabilities, you can now see the upcoming arrivals / departures for the upper and lower levels (separately) of the Secaucus Junction station, including the scheduled arrival time, track assignment, and train status (on-time, 7 minutes late, etc.). A cool feature is that clicking on a train’s arrival time brings up a list of all the stops that train will be making after Secaucus Junction. Quite importantly, and as noted in the press release:

Customers who use the new Meadowlands Rail Line to travel to and from football games or major events will be able to check their Secaucus connections from Giants Stadium.

Score!

To see a large screen shot of what DepartureVision looks like, click the image below.

DepartureVision for the Upper Level of Secaucus Junction - click to see a higher resolution image

For much more information about this great new service, read the Customer Notice.

I hope this trial is very successful, and leads to DepartureVision being made available for all train stations in the New Jersey Transit rail system.

You can now buy and use a single train ticket to ride from stations on the Long Island Rail Road all the way to the Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey, home of Giants Stadium, a new football stadium to be named later, and the Izod Center (as well as the Meadowlands Racetrack and the unfinished Xanadu).

But be careful – even though New Jersey Transit will be running trains to the Meadowlands for events other than Giants and Jets football games, the LIRR thru-tickets are only “officially” valid for football game days. This may have something to do with the fact that, as the LIRR notes, you must show your rail ticket at the fare gates at Secaucus Junction, instead of feeding it through the turnstile, since the LIRR ticket stock does not have the magnetic stripe like the NJT ticket stock.

Read all about this LIRR/NJT joint ticketing initiative here: http://mta.info/lirr/pubs/TrainToTheGame/. That LIRR web page even features a nifty diagram of part of Penn Station, to help people make the LIRR -> NJT transfer. The other part of the graphic is an extremely simple route diagram of the rail service. You can see them below:

Click to see a bigger version

Oh, and Metro-North is doing the same thing. Even though they are running direct trains from the New Haven line to Secaucus Junction on the days of Sunday 1 PM games, you can also buy a joint ticket from any Metro-North station that you can use to get all the way to the Meadowlands. You will of course need to get from Grand Central Terminal to Penn Station New York in order to board a New Jersey Transit train to Secaucus. The brochure linked to in my recent post on this topic explains things in much much greater detail.

P.S. And no, you can’t buy an LIRR ticket from Penn Station New York to the Meadowlands. I know, because I tried it this evening. Would have been (pointlessly) cool though, in a railfanning kind of way.

Metro-North Railroad has created a new brochure to explain their part of the direct service that they are planning to run with New Jersey Transit this fall. It is admittedly a complicated task to convey all of the options and nuances that they are trying to get across, but I think they did an okay job. The brochure is linked from a new web page Metro-North put up for this service. You can also download the PDF directly from this link: http://www.mta.info/mnr/html/SchedPDF_vWEB_Brochure.pdf

Edit: This brochure, in all its glossy printed glory, is available in the information boxes next to each of the upper level tracks at Grand Central Terminal, as of yesterday, August 19, 2009.

NJ Transit, the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority, and the Port Authority of NY & NJ hosted an inaugural ride to the opening ceremony of the new Meadowlands Rail Station today. The inaugural train departed Hoboken at 1:25 PM, then departed Secaucus a few minutes late at about 1:45 PM, and arrived at the new Meadowlands station at 2:00 PM. Below are many of the photos I took during the day. Click on the thumbnail image to view the full size photograph.

Governor Jon S. Corzine, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, and New York Giants co-owner John Mara rode the train from Secaucus (as far as I can tell, because I didn’t see them board at Hoboken) and then spoke at the opening ceremony after. Various other politicians and officials were also present.

After the speeches, Governor Corzine cut the ribbon, symbolically opening the station for service.

The station itself is basic but nice.

Some people would like to see the line loop around the sports complex, but for now it unceremoniously dead ends.

At 3:00 PM, the inaugural train returned to Secaucus and Hoboken.

Revenue service to the Meadowlands Rail Station begins this Sunday for the CONCACAF Gold Cup Final match at 3:00 PM at Giants Stadium. The first train leaves Hoboken at 11:30 AM.